Eight people were reportedly injured Sunday, July 15, when Iranian factory workers demonstrating against unpaid salaries clashed with police outside parliament in Tehran.

The student news agency ISNA said eight laborers were slightly hurt when police intervened to prevent several hundred workers who said they had not been paid for a year from entering the parliament chamber in central Tehran.

It said police used batons against the protesting workers, employed by the Jamco men's clothing factory and the Shadanpour shoe factory, and fired shots in the air in order to disperse the crowd.

The workers demanded that their salaries be paid and denounced the "incompetence of the factory management," the state IRNA news agency reported. Earlier, IRNA said "police forces have been deployed in front of the parliament to prevent any serious incidents."

The same employees had already staged a protest in front of the parliament on July 10 and on June 26.

Iran is battling unemployment of around 15 percent, according to official statistics, while unofficial estimates put the percentage substantially higher. Labor protests have stepped up over the past few months. ― (AFP, Tehran)